Earlier, I discussed the campaign to get Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up played at Shea Stadium.

Well, it happened. The song got over five million votes.

I caught it on my mobile phone at the game. The fan reaction was pretty harsh. Watch it here:

Here’s what it looked like on TV:

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So YouTube launched their original series Living Legends, featuring an introduction from The Rolling Stones (as I was the first to announce here).

So what do I think?

First of all, the art direction on this thing is just not good. If YouTube wants to be a player in the original content space, they are going to have to choose some good fonts and title treatments, and start making these channel pages a whole lot better looking. Ironically, this is something that MySpace is actually doing right. Check out BBC WOrldwide’s channel on MySpaceTV as an example of sub-channeling content and integration of community elements.

Secondly, I’m a huge Stones fan, and it just pains me to see Mick Jagger so obviously reading the simplest of lines from cue cards.

Thirdly, when I click on the ‘Ask a Question’ button, it just opens up a new tab in my browser and reloads the page.

Maybe it’s just me, but if you land the Rolling Stones (even in an obvious shill for their new movie), do it right.

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For all of you who started to write off MySpace (shame on you), pay extra-special attention to the results of a conference call scheduled @ 11am EST today. MySpace will be announcing MySpace Music, a standalone unit (but integrated into MySpace) that will featured tracks available for sale and download from every major label (other than EMI, as far as I know).

MySpace’s hook has always been its ability to galvanize fans around music (independent and signed artists), and now their strength may be the ability to vend that very same music. I’ll be keeping a close eye on sales and traffic numbers, but this could potentially be big — or it can be just another example of people not wanting to pay for music anymore, rendering the labels helpless.

Put it this way, if this doesn’t work, it’s very possible that nothing will. You’ve got passionate and loyal community, the ability to share and declare, the ability to spread the word to hundreds, or even thousands, with the click of a button.

To put it another way, if this fails, record labels, prepare for a world without yourselves.

Silicon Alley Insider looks like it will be providing some good coverage of this call. Send ‘em your questions if you want them asked on the call itself.

This is a great move by MySpace, and one many have been anticipating for over a year (at least). It takes a long time to negotiate with the labels — and get favorable terms. But I think what we now know is that the longer you hold out, the more desperate the music biz gets.

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I wrote about the possibility of this happening back in December. I said it would happen, and it is happening.

Antigua, because of the US’s pressure on the WTO to make online poker illegal, is threatening to legalize piracy if a swift decision to end the dispute isn’t reached.

Read more about it here and here.

This is the beginning of a veritable you-know-what-storm if Antigua goes ahead with their threat.

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Following up on Radiohead’s success with In Rainbows, Nine Inch Nails releases an instrumental album of ‘music for daydreams’ online: GHOSTS I-IV.

There are many options for download including a $5 download of individual tracks, a free 9-song sampler, as well as some other interesting configurations, all the way up to a $300 collector’s edition.

From the site:

Trent Reznor explains, “I’ve been considering and wanting to make this kind of record for years, but by its very nature it wouldn’t have made sense until this point. This collection of music is the result of working from a very visual perspective - dressing imagined locations and scenarios with sound and texture; a soundtrack for daydreams. I’m very pleased with the result and the ability to present it directly to you without interference. I hope you enjoy the first four volumes of Ghosts.”

This isn’t exactly ‘name your own price’ as Radiohead did it, but the options are intriguing nonetheless. $5 for a full album is just about right for many, and getting 9 tracks for free is as good of a deal as it gets (until someone uploads the album to P2P, which probably has already happened). What’s interesting here is the creation of options that go beyond just the music. Reznor is offering sets with vinyl LPs in fabric slipcases, limited-edition giclee prints, DVD and Blu-Ray versions, and more. For the die-hard NIN fans, these are some pretty intriguing options. Reznor probably won’t move thousands of these options, but he’ll sell some. The true story here will be told in the number of limited edition sets that get sold. NIN’s recent exploits with ARGs ironically brought music back into the physical world (digital files on physical drives) and this effort seeks to do the same. Will consumers pay for physical media anymore? I guess we’ll find out.

Or maybe enough people will buy the $5 digital download to make this all worthwhile.

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You know what brand does an amazing job at communicating with its consumers?

John Mayer.

John Mayer, the brand, has done an amazing job of connecting with audiences through communities and quite frequently, via communication on YouTube. He also doesn’t take himself too seriously, frequently spoofing himself, and anything else he deems worth spoofing. He wrestled with pop mediocrity before realizing that there was genuine talent that could still be appreciated (and be successful) by focusing on the things he did best — playing and singing the blues. When he communicates with his fans, he’s genuine, doesn’t run everything through his PR firm (or legal, apparently), lets them comment freely — and actually listens to them, and because of this, is so in tune with them that he knows exactly what to do to elicit a desired reaction.

Take this video, for example. It’s a re-imagining of Justin Timberlake’s I Think She Knows Interlude from his FutureSex/LoveSounds album. He rocks it, and all it does it get his fans more excited, bring in new ones, and add to his appreciation as a musician.

I can think of no fewer than 20 brands that could take this EXACT same strategy and parlay it into huge success. Yet they don’t.

So today, ask yourself, how can my brand be more like John Mayer? Or will you just stand around and not change, while you wait for the world to?

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Have you checked out MySpace’s new music offering over at http://www.myspace.com/transmissions?

As Stan Schroeder at Mashable points out, it looks like someone forgot to finish it.

Lots of thingamabobs and doohickeys that do nothing, all to mask the fact that all this offering is is a playlist and video player.

This is exactly the kind of thing that can kill a company — launching products before they’re impressive, not taking your users’ ‘wants’ into account, completely underwhelming every step of the way.

Is MySpace’s strategy to be ‘just good enough’? Will that be enough to remain cool?

Someone recently said to me that MTV knew they were in trouble when they started letting the kids tell them what was cool, instead of them continuing to tell the kids what was cool.

Will the beginning of the end of MySpace’s coolness be when MySpace stops listening to the kids, and starts trying to tell kids what is cool…in a very decidedly not cool way? Because that’s what you’re looking at right here.

You make the call.

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Not only is Arcade Fire awesome, but they performed live on stage with Bruce Springsteen.

Not only did they perform live on stage with Bruce Springsteen, but they made this fantastic interactive music video for Neon Bible.

This is a must-see. And the album is a must-have.

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Check out Ticketmaster’s group on Facebook, Ticketmaster Live.

Notice anything wrong with this picture?

No? Allow me to point out the wrongth.

1) Why give away 5 free songs on iTunes, when most of your audience is downloading most, if not all, of their music for free? Was there really no other incentive? How about $10 off your next concert ticket purchase? It feels like that would make more sense…and actually drive a Ticketmaster purchase.

2) I found out about this group because of this Digg story:

5 Free iTunes songs (For Facebook Users)

Log in to Facebook Search for “ticketmaster live” Join the group Redeem the 5 free songs link Leave the group if you want Badabing! 5 free songs!

As of right this moment, it’s got 611 Diggs and 157 comments. People digg something for nothing.

The problem is, the unfortunate truth (for the RIAA) is that music is free anyway. Unless you want to name your price, that is.

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So I’m back from vacation. And what happens while I’m over the Atlantic Ocean?

News breaks that Facebookis going to be directly competing with MySpace to be the default “home” for bands, according to GigaOm:

The platform will allows bands and labels to create artists pages, and allow various widgets to be embedded for music promotion, organizing events, etc. Among those widgets would be iLike, the most popular app inside Facebook, but will also include iTunes widgets for sampling (to being with), and eventually buying music through Apple (NSDQ: AAPL). The service will still have the utilitarian sensibilities of the Facebook platform, the sources stress, rather than the more chaotic and flashy platform that MySpace has.

Initial rumors apparently had Facebook taking on iTunes, but this seems to be the substantiated story. And it makes sense. Aspiring bands and rappers are what initially fueled MySpace’s growth, and anything Facebook can do at this point to migrate some of that magic over to their property is just gravy. Furthermore, iLike, ostensibly “Facebook Music” is one of the property’s most popular applications (over 632,000 active daily users — 7% of the active Facebook audience) has already been helping Facebook users recommend and discover new music since the opening of the Facebook app platform. There’s plenty of momentum for Facebook in the music area, and this will certainly help capitalize on that.

But what remains to be seen is whether or not Facebook can catch lightning in a bottle here. It seems that, according to the GigaOm report, these pages will be established by labels for bands — not necessarily indie bands themselves. So, is this just Facebook signing a deal with the devil, instead of making itself a better home for the unsigned/intentionally un-labeled bands?

Frankly, I’d be more excited with news of a Facebook deal with someone like Amie Street or even Last.fm. Naturally, that would make things less cozy for iLike, but as AC/DC once sang, Who Made Who?

Oh. And blink and you’ll miss it, but a UK company, Techlightenment (really?) has just launched a Facebook IM client app, FriendVox. Read the news at Slashdot.

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